# Background

> Kinbarrow modding reference — content tree `45d0fe274f851548`, version `0.2.0+main.c05ef2b`.

`backgrounds/<id>.ron` — an origin: the GRANT half of the grant/use split. A soul's background is where its skill proficiencies come from; the trade it works is its [`Profession`], which USES those skills at the bench, never grants them. The SRD ships one background (Acolyte); the rest are OURS, the profession precedent. A D&D origin is a BUNDLE, not a skill pair: beyond `skills` it may nudge ability scores, carry a named `feature`, and outfit the soul with starting `coins` and `equipment`. All four extras default empty, so thin origins and any mod file parse unchanged. Tools stay OFF the origin — trade competence is a trained tier the profession owns.

**Note on syntax:** these files are RON, not JSON. The shapes below are exact,
but punctuation follows RON — read a real `data/*.ron` file alongside.

## Fields

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `abilities` | `any[][]` | optional | Ability-score bumps this origin grants — `(ability, +bonus)` pairs, the `RaceDef::asi` idiom, composed on top of the racial ASI the way every other increase composes. |
| `coins` | `uint32` | default `0` | Starting coin the origin outfits the soul with — minted to its purse at genesis (`Time::ZERO`). |
| `equipment` | `EquipmentGrant[]` | optional | Starting goods the origin outfits the soul with — minted as stacks it carries at genesis. |
| `feature` | `BackgroundFeature` | optional | The origin's feature — the "more than a stat" half of a D&D background (Shelter of the Faithful, Criminal Contact). DERIVED onto a soul from its carried background id, never stored twice. |
| `id` | `string` | required |  |
| `name` | `string` | required |  |
| `skills` | `Skill[]` | required | The skill proficiencies this origin grants (an SRD background grants two); unioned onto the soul's set at generation (`soul::finalize`). |
| `source` | `Source` | required |  |

## Nested shapes

### Ability

The six ability scores (SRD 5.1). The engine's own `stats::Ability` is the runtime type; this is the data-layer mirror, bridged by [`Ability::engine`].

`Str`, `Dex`, `Con`, `Int`, `Wis`, `Cha`

### BackgroundFeature

A named origin feature: the half of a D&D background that is not a number. Every feature names a mechanical `effect` — the type FORBIDS inert prose: if an origin declares a feature, it must DO something the sim reads. `text` is the flavor the creator sheet shows and the chronicle can quote.

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `effect` | `FeatureEffect` | required | What the feature DOES in the sim — the mechanical half, read at the point the effect fires. No `Option`: a feature with no effect is inert prose, which the type refuses to represent. |
| `name` | `string` | required | The feature's short title (Never Lost, Never Hungry). |
| `text` | `string` | required | The feature's prose — what standing or knack the origin confers, shown on the creator sheet and quotable in the chronicle. |

### EquipmentGrant

One starting-goods grant an origin outfits the soul with: `qty` stacks of the `good` (a `data/goods/` id), minted at genesis.

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `good` | `string` | required | The good granted — a `data/goods/` id, resolved to a concept at placement. |
| `qty` | `uint32` | required | How many of the good to mint into the soul's hand. |

### FeatureEffect

What a background feature DOES in the sim. A CLOSED set — each variant is a real, soak-exercised mechanism, never flavor. It grows only when a feature's backing system exists (Shelter of the Faithful waits on a religion system to raise same-faith regard); until then that origin ships no feature at all, rather than an inert one.

### Skill

The eighteen SRD skills.

`Athletics`, `Acrobatics`, `SleightOfHand`, `Stealth`, `Arcana`, `History`, `Investigation`, `Nature`, `Religion`, `AnimalHandling`, `Insight`, `Medicine`, `Perception`, `Survival`, `Deception`, `Intimidation`, `Performance`, `Persuasion`

### Source

Every file's top-level value carries `source`.

#### Source::Srd51

SRD 5.1 — the System Reference Document, the shipped baseline.

#### Source::Original

Original content authored for this game (not from the SRD).

#### Source::Personal

A player's own transcription or third-party content in a mod tree — provenance stays honest without borrowing the base tree's markers. Never used by shipped files.